


Hush Little Baby, Don't Say a Word

by AppalachianApologies



Series: Appalachian's 2020 Whumptober [24]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Autistic Spencer Reid, Caring Hotch, Dad Hotch, Hurt Spencer Reid, Muteness, Spencer Reid Whump, Spencer Reid is Autistic, Whump, Whumptober 2020, a bit hard to tell which is from the trauma and which is from the autism but that's showbiz baby, always Dad Hotch, and Hotch actually talks about his childhood oops, and also Non-verbal, honestly most of this is just comfort because i needed some comfort in my life, that's right we're back again with the whumping, this time it's fairly explicit too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27180076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppalachianApologies/pseuds/AppalachianApologies
Summary: Spencer was gone for sixteen hours, and Hotch is realizing that Spencer might not ever be the same.Day 24: Forced Mutism
Series: Appalachian's 2020 Whumptober [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948174
Comments: 48
Kudos: 298
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Hush Little Baby, Don't Say a Word

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Hi! :D Sorry this one is out kinda late today, but I was making cinnamon rolls lmao. 
> 
> Lots of autistic Spencer here, because I live for this shit :)
> 
> Enjoy :D

JJ nearly ran straight into Morgan. “Call Hotch. There’s a John Doe at the hospital.”

*

The nurses nearly push Hotch into the private hospital room, desperate for their patient to calm down. “He won’t let anyone near him, let alone touch,” One of the nurses claims with a sad sigh. “If you’re at all able to calm him, it’d be a big help.”

Hotch nods, taking a step inside the threshold. At first, Spencer isn’t even obvious. The hospital bed is empty, and for a fleeting moment Hotch thinks that Spencer was able to sneak out since the half hour when he arrived. But then his eyes come across a fluff of chestnut hair, barely poking up from behind the bed.

“Reid?” Hotch calls out, taking light foot falls. “Spencer?”

The young agent has his head curled up in his knees, arms covering any extra space. Curled tightly in a ball, Hotch can see how obvious his shaking is. He’s not sure if it’s from the cold or shock, and Hotch doesn’t think he wants to know. “Reid?”

Spencer barely makes any indication that he hears the older man.

“Reid, can you look at me?”

When Spencer complies, Hotch wishes that he never asked.

Like a horrific Halloween costume, there’s blood coating the bottom of Spencer’s face, thick lines still bleeding. It looks like he’s been forced to dunk his chin in a barrel of blood, and it makes Hotch sick. However he thinks that he’d much prefer the barrel of blood than what’s actually happened.

Because instead, thick pieces of yarn are sewn between Spencer’s top and bottom lip. There are five holes on the top and four on the bottom, and the excess yarn hangs off to the side, soaked and dripping with blood.

Hotch instantaneously feels nauseous, but forces himself to be strong for Spencer. He makes himself take a few deep breaths, before turning towards the nurse, instructing, “Get me a doctor. Now,”

On the floor, Spencer continues to shake, and it hurts Hotch to see it. “Reid, can I touch you?”

With wild eyes, Spencer just looks at Hotch, maintaining perfect eye contact- something he’s never been able to do before. Before whatever happened to him.

“Reid?”

Shakily, Spencer unwraps his right arm from his legs and brings it up towards Hotch. The older man immediately grabs it, and squeezes tight. Spencer’s fingers stay limp, save for their shaking.

New footsteps greet the two agents, and Hotch turns to see who it is, while Spencer stays staring at his boss.

Directed at the nurse, Hotch requests, “Can you keep my team away? I’m Reid’s proxy, and they don’t need to see this,”

He nods, “Of course. And this is Doctor Perez,” He adds, before turning to leave.

When the doctor makes her way past the bed, she has to swallow before taking a full look at her patient. Spencer doesn’t acknowledge her presence. Crouching next to Hotch, she asks, “Can I take a look?”

Turning to Spencer, Hotch asks, “Reid, is it okay if she takes a look?” When Spencer doesn’t even blink, Hotch gives the doctor a quick glance of approval.

Perez doesn’t reach out to touch Spencer, which Hotch is eternally grateful for. After a few moments of inspecting Spencer’s face, she questions Hotch, “What happened?”

With a defeated sigh, Hotch admits, “I don’t know. Reid went missing sixteen hours ago, and we got a call about a John Doe thirty minutes ago. Do you know if he was dropped off?”

Shaking her head, Perez answers, “The nurses told me he walked into the ER by himself, basically traumatizing the rest of the patients. He was nearly catatonic, and they got him to this room,” Perez pauses to motion to the walls, “And that’s all I know.”

Hotch nods with a sigh. “Are you able to…?” He swallows, glancing at Spencer’s mouth.

“It shouldn’t be too difficult, from a physical standpoint,” Perez answers, understanding his question. “He won’t have to fully under, either. We can numb the area around his mouth and keep him conscious without hurting him further.”

“When can that happen?” Hotch asks, facing his youngest agent again, who now has tears streaming down his face, blending in with the blood, creating dark red-ish brown streaks.

“As soon as possible,” Perez answers. “I can get a few nurses down here and we can get started.”

“Will I be able to stay?”

Frowning, Perez honestly replies, “Normally? No. But in this circumstance? I think we can arrange that.”

“Alright, good,” Hotch nods. He bites his lip for a second before attempting to give a comforting look to Spencer. “We’re gonna get these off of you, okay?”

Spencer stays shaking, but he tightens his hold on Hotch’s hand.

“Can we get him up on the bed?” Perez interrupts, pushing herself off the ground.

“I think so,” Hotch replies, even though he doesn’t exactly believe he can. “Reid- Spencer, can you try and stand up?” Unsurprisingly, Spencer makes no indication that he’s heard Hotch, but the Unit Chief isn’t deterred. “I’m going to help you stand, okay? And then we can get you sitting on the bed. It’ll be much more comfortable,”

Hotch grabs Spencer’s left elbow with his left hand and starts to rise. Spencer doesn’t exactly stand up, so much as simply follow Hotch’s lead, but it works. Once he’s on the bed, Spencer stays looking forward, shoulders pressed tightly into his body.

It feels so wrong to Hotch to see Spencer so vulnerable, and he’s glad the rest of the team isn’t here to witness this.

After the nurses arrive, Perez talks through what she’s going to do to both Hotch and Spencer, but only one of them actually listens.

“Okay, Spencer, I’m going to numb the area around your lips, okay? It’s going to feel a little strange.”

Spencer continues to stare forward, and doesn’t flinch when two needles poke through his face on opposite sides of his lips. 

As Perez cuts through each of the pieces of yarn, Hotch winces at each snip. It seems to echo through the small room, and Hotch is sure that he won’t be forgetting this ound any time soon.

After setting the medical grade scissors down, Perez insists, “If you feel any pain, I want you to squeeze your friend’s hand, okay? And he’ll let me know,” She adds, with a quick nod to the older man.

Hotch is glad that he isn’t the one to be pulling out each piece of yarn. Blood and body tissue come with each one, and drip on the metal tin once Perez sets them down. It’s a tense few minutes, but it goes fast. Pulling off her nitrile gloves, Perez smiles, “Okay, Spencer. We’re all done. The numbing should go down within the next hour, alright?”

By the end of the procedure, Spencer is violently shaking, eyes wide open and cast down at his feet.

Taking his eyes off his agent for a few moments, Hotch gives a tight smile to Perez. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. I’m going to step out to page one of our psychologists, are you two going to be okay?”

Hotch nods, knowing that the last thing Spencer would want is a stranger trying to talk to him about his trauma. After all, he barely talks to them about his trauma.

Spencer’s shaking seems to have gone down a bit, but Hotch can’t tell if he’s exhausted himself, or if he’s genuinely feeling better. Whatever the case may be, he takes it as a win.

“You’re going to be okay, Reid,”

Much to his surprise, Spencer responds by squeezing his hand, and Hotch can’t help but give a small smile.

“The rest of the team is really worried about you,” Hotch starts, face already back in a frown. “Do you think you’d be up to seeing them?”

Spencer looks down at the ground, in an internal turmoil over the right choice. Eventually he slowly shakes his head side to side, and Hotch can’t really blame him. The team can be a bit… overbearing at times.

Hotch nods, “Okay, that’s okay. Is it okay if I stay here?” To his relief, Spencer nods. “Okay, I’ll stay in here with you, and I’ll make sure that the team doesn’t visit yet.”

Spencer seems to calm a bit at that, shoulders slumping down. He begins to rock ever so slightly, and Hotch gives a sigh of relief. Hopefully stimming will help Spencer process whatever fresh hell he just went through. 

After a long few moments, Hotch asks, “Do you want to lie down? It might be more comfortable,”

Spencer shakes his head, content to just sit and rock, still clutching onto Hotch’s hand for dear life.

“Okay. That’s okay. Do you feel up to drinking something? Maybe some water or juice?”

Spencer shakes his head again.

With a nod, Hotch agrees, “I won’t make you drink any water right now, but just know that you’re probably going to need to soon.” Spencer nods. “Did you drink anything from when you left the precinct until now?”

There’s a pause in Spencer’s rocking, before he shakes his head no once more, causing Hotch’s lips to fall down even more. But as Spencer continues his rocking, he lifts up his arm to bite it.

The older man isn’t quite sure what to do. He knows that Spencer’s moments away from a meltdown, or a shutdown worse than this, and the biting might be the only thing stopping him. However, he can’t just sit while Spencer hurts himself. Making a quick decision, Hotch requests, “Hey, why don’t you bite your shirt instead? Then you won’t be hurting your arm,”

Spencer doesn’t make any indication that he hears the man, and continues to bite down.

“Spencer?”

Hotch isn’t sure if it’s a response to him or the stimulus around them, but Spencer clenches his eyes shut and keeps his forearm in his mouth. A few seconds later, tears fall from his eyes.

“I’m going to go turn off the lights, okay?” Spencer doesn’t nod, but Hotch still slips his hand out of Spencer’s to quickly move the few feet to the light switch. Unfortunately, now without anything to ground himself Spencer begins hitting his leg, just to be able to understand his own thoughts.

When Hotch picks up his hand again Spencer cries, wishing that all of this was over.

He hates how his face feels and he hates how the hospital bed feels and he hates how the little holes in his lips feel and he hates it all and nothing is stopping and Spencer hates it, just  _ hates _ it but he can’t do anything to stop it.

His thoughts are interrupted by Hotch squeezing his hand, soothing, “Spencer, you’re okay. You can squeeze my hand as hard as you’d like, okay? Let’s not hit though, got it?”

Spencer’s quite glad that he doesn’t have muscles like Morgan, because if he did he’s sure that he might break Hotch’s hand. As it stands right now, Hotch might even get a bruise. It doesn’t help the same way hitting does, but it’s something. And now that the lights are off, Spencer feels like he can breathe again.

Of course, all of that goes away again when there’s a light knock outside the door.

Spencer and Hotch both jerk up to find an older man with a smile looking in. “Hi, you two,” He greets. “Doctor Perez sent me down to talk, is now a good time?”

Hotch turns towards Spencer, and he doesn’t need to ask to know that now is definitely not a good time for him.

“Could we have a few more minutes?” Hotch asks, determined to get those minutes whether or not they’re granted.

Luckily, he won’t have to go out in full lawyer mode when the man nods, “Of course. I’ll check back in ten minutes, how does that sound?”

“That’d be great,” Hotch notes, already turning his attention back to Spencer.

He’s still rocking with his arm in his mouth, but Hotch can’t tell if Spencer’s still actively biting down. 

“You’re okay, Reid. You’re okay.” 

Spencer nods in his rocking, and continues it a few times because it feels rather nice. Occasionally he’ll curl and loosen his fingers, feeling his muscles work all the way up his arm. Hotch stays by his side the entire time, staying quiet like the rest of the room.

Around the five minute mark, Spencer takes his arm out of his mouth, grimacing when he wipes the saliva off on the side of his shirt. Hotch takes a glance at his arm, relieved when he sees that no skin was broken.

And then, surprising the older man, Spencer lifts up his left and like he’s holding a pencil, and makes air scribbles.

“Do you want to try and write something down?”

Spencer nods.

Quickly, Hotch pulls out his old notes, turning the paper upside down to the side that’s nearly blank. He then reaches into his breast pocket to pull out his favorite fountain pen, and hands them both to Spencer.

For nearly the first time since Hotch arrived, Spencer removes his hand from Hotch’s and grips the pen hard enough to turn his knuckles red, and then white.

He still rocks while he writes, but Spencer’s writing already starts out like chicken scratch, so it’s not too much messier. Spencer starts out slow, but after writing a few characters he speeds up to his typical hasty writing.

Hotch leans over to see what he’s writing, reading before the tip of the pen has even left the paper.

‘I don’t want to talk.’

Looking back up at Spencer, Hotch answers, “That’s fine, Spencer. You know that it’s okay.” Although it’s been few and far between, Hotch knows that Spencer goes non-verbal, and it’s never been a reason to get angry.

Spencer clenches his teeth before bringing the pen back to the paper. ‘I don’t feel like talking.’

“It’s okay,” Hotch replies again with an internal frown. Usually Spencer isn’t so concerned about this, so he wonders what’s changed.

Going back to his first line, Spencer adds a few words. Hotch has to crane his neck to read it.

‘I don’t want to talk again.’

Hotch pauses for a few moments before trying, “Spencer, something traumatic has just happened to you, and it’s okay to not want to talk. You don’t need to explain it to me.”

Shaking his head in his rock, Spencer crosses out the first two statements and writes again. ‘I don’t ever want to talk again.’

With a deep breath, Hotch reads over the writing one more time, hoping to find something that he didn’t the first time. But it’s hard to look between the lines when it’s only a few words long.

“Reid,” Hotch starts out softly, “Can you tell me what happened?”

Perhaps it’s from reciting easy facts, but Spencer nods calmly, very much unlike how Hotch thought he would respond.

Scrawling in the corners of Hotch’s discarded notes, Spencer is able to spell out some of the story for Hotch. He reads the words as fast as Spencer writes them.

‘My brain is my best asset, so I began to talk myself out of the situation. He didn’t like it when I talked.’

Hotch sighs. As if Spencer wasn’t traumatized enough from what Hankel did to him, now he has to go through this merely a year later. “You don’t have to talk with me if you don’t want to,” Hotch points out, “But you may want to talk later, and that’s okay.”

With another shake of his head, Spencer underlines, ‘I don’t ever want to talk again.’

Hotch wants to find a good statement to soothe Spencer, but he just can’t. He can’t blame Spencer for not wanting to talk after his lips were forcibly stitched together. So instead, he suffices for asking, “Can I touch your hand again?”

Rather than nod, Spencer’s right hand squeezes Hotch’s wrist. The pressure changes along with each of Spencer’s rocks, but Hotch doesn’t mind. If this is what’s helping the young genius, he’s content to stay like this for hours.

“You’re safe now, you know that, right?”

Spencer nods.

“Nothing else is going to happen to you. You escaped, and you’re not going to get hurt again.” Hotch states, as if he could will the fact into existence.

Spencer nods again, but Hotch can tell that he doesn’t believe it.

Hotch gives him a smile. “Did you know I once bit through my bottom lip?” He asks, forcing himself to avoid Spencer’s own.

While shaking his head, Spencer looks up at Hotch, eager to hear the story.

“When I was fourteen, Sean and I were running around during spring break at the old elementary school. The problem was that it had just rained for two straight days before that afternoon,” 

Spencer gives a sympathetic wince, knowing where this story is going.

“We were trying to play a game of two man soccer, when my sneakers slipped on the mud. I almost caught myself with my hands, but I was a second too late,” Hotch explains, using his free hand to help animate his story. “And when my chin hit the ground I ended up biting through the entirety of my bottom lip.”

As a response, Spencer sucks in a breath, making a faint whistle sound.

Chuckling, Hotch agrees, “Yeah, it was not fun. I had to get four stitches, and they drove me nuts. You could still see the scar until a few years ago, even.”

Spencer nods, but looks for the scar below his bottom lip nevertheless. Sometimes Hotch swears he can still sometimes see it when he looks in the mirror, but he might just be imagining it.

“I hated that scar, you know? It drove me crazy, and I even tried to grow a beard to cover it when I was a teenager,”

Spencer smiles at him, eyes scrunched up.

“Of course I wasn’t as smart as you were as a teenager, and didn’t realize that growing hair on my chin would cover up my lip, so I gave up after a few months.” Spencer’s still looking expectantly at Hotch, so he dutifully continues. “And Haley didn’t mind it, so I ended up just ignoring it for awhile, even though it was still there.”

Out of the corner of Hotch’s eye, he sees the psychiatrist is back at the door frame, but he sends him a quick finger, hoping to get one more minute with Spencer. “Eventually, I was content with having that weird scar on my lip,” Spencer nods, “And then a few years ago when I went to shave, I realized that I couldn’t see it anymore.” Hotch pauses to smile fondly at the memory. “I don’t know when exactly it went away, but now the entire thing is just a memory of the past.”

Spencer looks away from Hotch, face pulled up in concentration. After a few moments, he takes his hand off of Hotch’s wrist and begins writing again.

‘Just a memory?’

Nodding, Hotch confirms, “Just a memory of the past.”

**Author's Note:**

> dad hotch dad hotch dad hotch dad hotch dad hotch dad hotch da-
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this one, and it's always a party writing autistic characters :D   
> If you'd all like to vote on what you want me to write for whumptober, you can do so on my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/appalachianapologies) (AppalachianApologies), send me an ask or reply to my pinned post :D I also just have so much fun interacting with you all, and just wanted to give a thanks to anyone and everyone who talks with me there- I love you all :')
> 
> I love you all very much, and I hope you all are doing okay. If you find yourself in a bad or scary situation, here are some hotlines (Please keep in mind that the written out numbers are US hotlines)
> 
> National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673  
> National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
> 
> If you don't live in America and need someone to talk to, here's a list of [international hotlines.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines)  
> You are not alone, and I love you all <3
> 
> Much love to all of you, and take care until tomorrow!! <3


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